HD 'Persnickety'
by tigersilver
Summary: Hogwarts, '8th Year'. A sort of secret but not really romance blooms between our two lovely boys, but Draco Malfoy is not so sanguine over Harry Potter's methods. What foolish nonsense is this?


**HD 'Persnickety'**

For my (relatively) reluctant prompters, I have lobbed words at all your prompts, stuck them together with slashy goo and tea leaves, and voila! 'Thanks so much!' ficcage!

Okay, so here's the prompt: (AU. 8th year.)  
Now that Voldemort's dead, Harry doesn't have to keep his relationship with Draco a secret anymore. I'd like something funny. No angst but shocking friends and professors is more than okay. Hope you'll have inspiration! Dreamcatcher .com/

Oh! Ummm... all that's coming to me now is 'tea'. Megyal .com/

D8  
OHNOES. I've never come up with a prompt before.  
-think think think-  
Okay. How about, a tea party? I haven't a clue why our dear boys might be tea-partying, but I'm sure you'll think of something. =D .com/

Well, if I must, then I must. ;) Since it's a stressful time right now, how about Draco's angsting (read: whining dramatically and possibly comically) about something, and Harry finds a way to calm him (or shut him up, as it may be). As innocent or naughty as you'd like. :) Thanks! .com/

* * *

"You are, without doubt, a pain in the arse of humanity, Draco. A stickler—a ponce. _I_ say we toss all these silly 'rules' of yours in the rubbish and get on with it. Tell them; they're our friends, git. Can't hurt to start close at home, can it?"

"And I say _no_, Harry. I see no problem with my very simple request. I wish it to be this one way, and it's no bloody good if it isn't approached in the manner that is proper and right. _Others_ may accept less and that is, of course, their prerogative, but I am a Malfoy and _I_-will not. End of story."

Draco handed over Harry's readied cup and saucer promptly—filled to the perfect level with Harry's favourite blend. Even the lemon wedge accompanying it was a thing of art—edges scalloped by elf crafts-persons deep in the heart of the Hogwarts kitchens, tea towel-clothed sous chefs who knew a thing or three about appetizing garnishments; Harry's preferred two lumps and one dollop were precisely doled out to spec.

It was not merely a cuppa—it was 'A Cup of Proper Tea, A la Malfoy'.

Harry stirred the brew contemplatively and contemplated the biscuit tray, piled high with an assortment of Elf-baked sweets.

"Persnickety." Harry sneered the word in the best Malfoy fashion, but really, it hid the faintest of Potter-style grins. He was rather fond of Malfoy's little quirks, for all they infuriated them. Those so-called 'quirks'—and the myriad fancies, requirements, and bloody toplofty expectations—they made the git 'Malfoy' and not some other blond git with a pedigree so long and complex it could choke one upon swallowing. A _Malfoy _could never be a Nott, for instance—or a Weasley, oh no! Harry had perfected the art of understanding that salient fact…recently. Quite recently. So recently he was perhaps a bit brusque in his handling of the developing situation: "Stubborn, mulish and foolishly behind the times, git; that's what you are. You're nutters, too, Malfoy. It's not ever going to happen, your perfect courtship," he added, for clarification. "I'm not waiting about for it to be the 'right time' or the 'right way'. We need to tell them. I will tell the, in fact, whether you want me to or not, if this goes on much longer. I'm tired of hiding."

Draco set the magical teapot down on the table between them, ably catching up a drip with a snowy napkin. He frowned his displeasure, not an unnatural occurrence for a bloke who strutted about with such unreasonably high expectations.

"I am not in the slightest bit interested in your opinion of what is and isn't going to happen, Harry. As I've pointed out, there is an accustomed order and sense to these delicate matters, at least among the old families. There is precedent, and history, and years and years of example. _I_ won't consent to being remembered as the one Malfoy who managed an event as crucial and life altering as this in some harum-scarum manner. I won't. I care for you more than that and I shan't have your good name besmiched by any hint of being forced to marry. And if you don't like my terms, Harry, then it simply won't happen—nothing will happen. Not here, not now and not 'til you see the sense in my words and agree with me—which you should be more than willing to do, I'd think. You don't want the publicity, do you? You hate publicity, Potter. I can't even imagine why you'd want to court it. Unfathomable, that. Not like the Harry I know. But-and I stand on this, Harry-I'll not tell Hogwarts. I'll not countenance telling anyone anything until we're officially courting. End story, Potter. That's it."

A cold twinge in his middle keyed Harry into the very real possibility of the prat calling it actual quits over this. Harry wouldn't put it past him—not for an instant. Malfoy was a very hard sell. A real, er, prick when it came to blowing off his ruddy dusty old 'traditions'.

"You're impossible, Draco," he replied, sticking to his guns doggedly. "And about a hundred years behind times, too, arse. This is Hogwarts, not some Pureblood bastion. No one cares here. You make too much of it."

"On the contrary," Draco glared. "Potter." He busied himself doctoring his own tea—no sugar at all and a squeeze of one escalloped lemon wedge only. It was the dark smoky blend known as Russian Caravan and Harry had noticed his companion always approached this blend rather differently than he would the more usual—read 'common-as-dirt'—mixtures of black and orange pekoe. The git was a purist. A specialist of tea, in a way, just as he was the budding specialist in Potions. Thank Merlin for Wizarding teapots that could brew different blends!

"I care," Draco carried on, his voice penetrating Harry's thoughts in bits-and-pieces. "About you, Potter. Very much so—you know that. But, still, you're incredibly in the wrong if you believe I'll ever accept that the residents of Hogwarts should be informed before the remainder of the world...which is not going to happen, by the bye. Hogwarts will learn of it when the rest of the world does..which would be later. Much later, Potter, after we've published an official announcement of betrothal, which likely wouldn't be for years, yet, in any event. We've not been through the usual protocol yet; can't even begin that process till school's out, either. Though, I do imagine Father would be utterly ecstatic, actually, if you followed through on this pointless threat of yours. Make his bleeding day, that sort of tasty gossip over his only son, the catch. To have a Harry Potter panting, ready and eager to be linked with a Malfoy? Why, that'd be exactly what he'd love to boast of at his club. He'd dine out upon it for weeks, I'm sure. He and Mum both. But no-not happening."

"Small favours, Draco," Harry snapped, temper surfacing at the mere mention of the elder Malfoy, as always. "Your father ecstatic over anything _I _do is the absolutely last thing I'd wish for, nit," he countered, absentmindedly accepting a proffered Jammy Dodger to Draco, "but—and this is a big 'but', Draco—I am not simply being difficult for the sake of being difficult. This is Hogwarts, our second home, practically; we've known these people for years and they us, so they're far more likely to simply accept it and get on with things wth no fuss. Plus, everyone else just goes on ahead with their engagements, without all this faffing about. For Merlin's sake, even Ron and Hermione have finally managed to do it, Malfoy! That's like...like the bloody Second Coming, it's been so many years in the making! So, no; I don't quite see why we have to create such a huge production out of what's plainly obvious to anyone who possesses the bloody eyes to _see_—"

"That's just it, Harry. You don't see." Draco folded both his arms and his lips, the first in a defensive line across his chest as he lounged back in his armchair, the second in a thin, dissatisfied moue. His teacup stayed upon the table, ignored for the moment. "You're a speccy blind git who only wants to rush ahead insanely, and damn the consequences. And you don't seem to wish to see, either! My way is the right way, Potter. You're a public figure; so am I. People must grow accustomed; that's what courtships are for, git. Give over, already."

"That's not it, either, Draco. You're wrong." Harry shifted his arse 'round a bit on the cushions, so he could bump shoulders companionably with his seatmate—perhaps smooth those so-easily ruffled feathers back into place. This subtle realignment caused Harry's knee to knock the table, a chain reaction that sent the calm pond of licorice-smelling liquid in Draco's cup on the table to jiggling alarmingly and sloshing about. He earned himself a second, fiercer glare.

_Right_. Harry thought. _Cancel that, then_. Reason wasn't working—or at least not Harry-reasoning. Draco was obdurate.

"Idiot!" Draco hissed at him, stilling his sloshing beverage with a careful hand. The tea resumed its earler smooth level. "Watch yourself, Potter! You're a menace."

"Sorry!" Harry exclaimed, waving the Dodger apologetically and shedding crumbs. Harry-reasoning aside, he wasn't finished, not by half. This assault was an ongoing battle, or so it had to be, given whom he was dealing with. "Sorry, sorry, on all counts-but it's still true, Draco, no matter what you say about 'proper' this and 'correct' that. We need to simply _do_ it. Get it over with—break the news, make the bleeding headlines—bite the ruddy bullet. It'll be a nine days wonder and the _Prophet_ will have a field day—likely Luna will want to interview us both, too, for hers—but everyone else needs to—"

"Everyone else, Potter, has not been expected to continue a bloodline that has been unbroken in a full thousand years," Draco raised his voice and shot his response back quick as anything, ignoring entirely the odd Muggle reference to firearms without a beat lost in the process, and finally segueing into full-out negation like the pro he was. "Without the use of spell, potion or surrogate, and without nary a hitch, mind you, to divert the flow of history. A Malfoy heir has not married another Wizard in a dragon's years, Potter. I's not unthinkable, but it's certainly not common, and Father, for one, will be livid, no matter if you're the bloody Chosen One or not. This is no small applecart we plan to upset and I'll ask you not to treat it as such. I am not joking about, Harry, even if you don't take this seriously. This is all about how very strongly I feel for you, git, and I will not—_not_—demean it. All will be as is usually done in a regular betrothal and that _is_ my last word, Potter. Now, shut up and drink your tea, stupid. It's likely cold already."

Malfoy sniffed through his narrowed nostrils to emphasize this very singular point he was making, elevating them on high with a flourish. He'd been making that same boring point ever since Harry had broached the subject of going public, three weeks gone. And he'd not budged an inch in Harry's favoured direction, nor even seemed slightly willing to compromise. Not Malfoy, no. Harry loved him to death, but no one had ever said the git was easy...not and lived happily after.

Harry eyed his irked companion carefully for a long moment, considering how best to proceed. Tricksy going, herding a Malfoy down a path he so clearly didn't wish to travel. Harry had yet to achieve all the finer points of managing the git subtly...though he rather looked forward to the time it would take to learn them all. Years upon years of spirited battles—decades and yet more decades of make-up shagging.

On that thought he grinned, as overtly winsome as he could possibly be, and decided abruptly that perhaps a different tactic might be more successful. Accordingly, Harry turned on all the charm he could summon readily: big green eyes, a tiny curve to his full lips, a slight tilt to his chin: all those inviting signs that he knew Malfoy found enticing.

"Draco." Shifted his arse closer, too, so he was practically on Draco's lap. "Draco, luv, listen..."

Draco raised a single enquiring brow and pointedly said nothing. He thinned his lips and was visibly the immoveable object. Harry squirmed about on the Gryffindor common room couch that was his personal favourite—the one stationed directly before the smallest of the three hearths that ringed the room, and thus the most private. Behind them he could hear the low murmurs and stifled giggles of his Housemates, engaged in chatting, coursework and a variety of games. But no one dared come too near the couch he and Malfoy occupied; Draco's quick application of Jellylegs and Stinging Hexes early on in the year had firmly chastised any inopportune younger years who relentlessly whinged for the Great Harry Potter's attention, and all the older students were too well inured to Draco's intermittent foul tempers to bother them much when they were obviously having a 'private moment'.

"I am listening, Harry; I always do, when it's you. That in no way implies I'll agree."

They'd had any number of such 'private moments' since this final year at Hogwarts had commenced, and it was May now, and nearly time for the repeating 7th Years to be released unto the world beyond. There was just this one task left before them, now the Nastily Exhausting Wizard Tests were done and over with: come out, come clean and face what would no doubt be a full-blown Wizarding 'Thus Sprach Zatathustra' once they'd done so.

Harry anticipated a media blizzard, realistically. He did not sneeze without _Witch Weekly_ printing special editions over the precarious state of the Golden One's health. Draco, on the other hand, intrinsically went into shuddering fits over the very idea. For all his love of attention, he shied away from the gossip rags like the sodding Pureblood he was. A Malfoy appearing in the Society Pages of _Wizarding Today_, elegantly arm-in-arm with another Pureblood at a charity ball or gracefully partaking tea at some highly rarified function with a capital 'F' was one thing—a Malfoy being bandied about in the racy 'Which Wizard?' column was another. Truly, setting Skeeter on Harry back in Fourth had been a quite diabolical form of revenge for him to choose—no doubt the git could imagine nothing worse than being forced under the harsh cynosure of all eyes and held there.

"I am _not_ joking about," Harry informed Draco. "I am not being facetious or ill-advised or overly Gryffindor; I am not 'rushing in', either. The first thing we must do is tell everyone here, Draco. If our own schoolmates know now, before we leave here, it'll ease up all the faster. Blow over, like a toxic cloud. Mitigation, Draco. Rough ground lightly, remember?"

"And since when do you quote the Muggle General, Harry?" Draco snorted at him, one pale blond brow cocked high. "Hermione's influence, again?"

"Hah, very hah, Draco," Harry chuckled, drawing his knees up and scooting over till he was practically in Draco's lap."Was Ron, actually. It's amazing what he reads. Caught him swotting _The Art of War_ two weeks ago—and then last weekend he was all about wanting to see some bloke in the cinema named Bruce Lee; he went on and on forever about 'precisely applied force' and the 'fists of fury'—and then there was that solid month of him spouting off about that Muggle Nelson, don't forget. Really, it's boggling what he gets into, and I don't think all it can be laid at Hermione's door, either—"

"Horatio Nelson. Noted Muggle Admiral," Draco interrupted Harry again, this time with his lusciously thin pink lips folded in a severely disapproving line. "Had a fancy for the Muggle Lady Hamilton, some die-away ginger bint more hair than brains—very sad, it was, Harry, but you're straying far from the point. Weasley's pleasure reading, no matter how unlikely, is not the problem here. Your stubborn Gryffindor tendency to go off on a tear is." Draco leant forward gracefully and took up his cup-and-saucer. He disdained one of the usual array of shortbread rounds, choosing a choco-coated Pimm's biscuit instead. "Don't attempt to distract me with miscellaneous trivia—not again. I know you all too well, now. It's not working, Harry. It'll never work."

"I'm not, really, Draco," Harry assured him—though of course he _was_—and snuggled over on the cushions a bit more, making sure to align their separate thighs and hips in a tight line, so their bodies were subtly thrown together over a seam. Draco's scowl had no force behind it and Harry was fairly certain he wasn't really objecting to the close proximity, no matter how improper—not even when his teacup sloshed again. "I simply believe Hogwarts is our best option for going about this in a sane and orderly fashion and I don't quite get why _you_ don't. Tell me, do you want to face up to your parents without some form of _fait accompli_ backing us up? I don't think so," he smirked. "Your dear daddy wil AK me the instant he learns of it and your mum'll skin me alive for daring to touch her little boy. Much better to just make it happen—before anyone can stick their oar in."

"This," Draco echoed, flapping a hand casually over his shoulder and thereby implying the inclusion of all of the Gryffindor common room behind them and their beloved alma mater, too, "is not the norm, Harry. Far from it. If we were in Slytherin now—or, Merlin forbid, Ravenclaw!—you'd not be able to move for the blathering masses of sychophants and hangers-on. They adore you; you are the Hero. Public property, Harry. And the silly Huffles would likely rip all our clothing off, seeking souvenirs of the historic moment of revelation. We've only peace and quiet now because your assortment of mates are able to keep their gobs at least partway shut—and so they should, if they know what's good for them," he added grimly. "Or I'll hex them that way, permanently."

"Oi! No need to threaten my Housemates, Draco!"

Harry shook his head, and brought his half drunk cup of tea to safe harbor in his lap. He could feel Draco breathing rapidly next to him, quite visibly upset, for all the git likely wish to be calm and dignified about it. But talking of outing thei affair had that effect upon Draco. He hated the very thought of it and Harry only partially bought into this 'proper courtship' crap. There had to be more to it than simply the threat of stray gossip. For instance, this only mildly acrimonious discussion between them was actively sending the wind Draco's Pureblood arse and Harry truly didn't wish it to be like that. He loved the git, pretensions, airs, arrogance and all. But…it had to be done; the music had to be faced squarely, and the sooner the better. To hesitate was to lose—and he wasn't risking losing Draco to a firestorm of media frenzy... or whatever Draco's horrid daddy had to say about it. Merlin knew what ridiculous objections the sod might come up with next to delay this. It could be years!

"That's only at first, Draco," he murmured soothingly, "and then people will grow accustomed. You're wrong, love. I tell you—a nine day's wonder, a little unwanted publicity and then it'll be all over. Mission accomplished."

"No." Draco, having issued that response in an adamantine tone, sipped his smoky tea and took a vicious bite of his Pimm's biscuit. A wisp of chocolate coating smeared the corner of his thin upper lip, bowed as it was so sweetly, and to Harry's fond eye, eminently snoggably. "I shan't cooperate with your madness, Harry, and that's it. We'll wait till after we graduate and you've entered Aurors. We'll wait till I've properly appraoached Mother and Father about it, as well—or they'll never, ever welcome you to the family as they should do. And I will not rush these things, mind you. I've not even begun to do this the right way, Harry, thanks to you and your highhandedess, and that's shocking. We've slept together how many times now and we've yet to even take tea together at Madame Puddifoot's? My parents would be entirely appalled-and rightfully so!"

"That's where you're completely barmy, Draco," Harry riposted instantly, sure of this, at least. "Narcissa loves me dearly, just for saving your arse; I'm a second son to her already, no matter what nonsense your dratted father goes on about, and _she_ won't be appalled—she'll be _pleased_. I say we do it. The Profs will be well pleased, not that it's their business and our mates will get over themselves; they'll bloody well have to, won't they? To Hades with waiting—I want you."

"I say we don't, Potter." Draco wasn't budging an inch, nor a fraction. He set his jaw and glared at Harry. "Ruin our chances for a well-received marriage by being heedless. You've a career ahead of you, as do I. And even _you_ will admit I know a great deal more than you about manners in the Wizarding world. It's not proper to barrel into a relationship in this way—you make it seem like a momentary passion. A phase. Something...cheap." Draco frowned; sipped again and then swallowed very slowly, the degree of his frown increasing exponentially as he considered. "Unless, of course, that's how you wish it? A blip on your otherwise spotless record? An aberration you'll be forgiven after, when you're shed of me? I know these flash-in-the-pan affaires are all the rage with you Muggleborns—one only has to read the _Guardian_—"

"Draco!"

A wave of Harry's frantic fingers had Vanished both cups and thrown a blurry wall of white noise up between their quiet pool of retreat and the inattentive Gryffindors. They shimmered into opacity behind Harry's wards, he and Draco, and it would take McGonagall at the least to break through them.

"Are you altogether mental?" Harry demanded, half-furious, half-terrified at his lover's implication this was all but some passing fancy. "Of course I'm not planning on saying that! I'd _never_ say that! I'm gagging for you, you—you mental patient! I've never stopped, not in all these years!"

"Humph!" Draco, eyeing his empty fingers where his cup had been residing just a half-second previous, seemed unconvinced. "And by 'all these years' you mean all three of them—"

"More!" Harry interjected, huffing through his flaring nostrils. "At least four, Malfoy!"

"Hmm," Draco nodded slowly, allowing that to stand, though Harry could see the doubt writ clear in his skeptical grey eyes. "If you truly meant that, Harry, you'd cede gracefully. You'd admit I know what I'm doing and that I know how to go about it, on _this_ topic, if nothing else. One does not simply rush into a Wizarding engagement. There are certain clear-cut steps one must follow—a protocol. Even Weasley knows this, if your so-book learned Granger does _not_. It's common knowledge. That's why he took his time, Harry. It wasn't because he didn't know how he felt about Granger. Whatever he is, your ginger Weasel, he is not that foolish."

"Draco…" Harry sighed, and wrapped his arms 'round his lover, secure in the knowledge the Common Room would only glimpse a blur of movement and hear nothing that they did not wish public. "Oh, git, thank you—and you know I worship the sodding ground you stomp on, you know that. I _want_ to tell them—them first, of all people. Ron and Hermione, Parkinson and Zabini. These are our _friend_s, Draco—our mates, all these people here at old Hogs. They've stood by us, thick and thin—by me, even risked their lives for me—and you, too, Draco, after. Half the reason we've even got this far was because they accepted you when you came back for NEWTS classes—admit it. They should learn first, before anyone, that we've—well…besides your parents and the Weasley's, of course. And little Teddy and Aunt Andy and probably Professor Mc—"

"That's just the thing, Harry."

Draco scowled and then threw up his hands in a little gesture of resignation. And then proceeded to rearrange them with scientific precision, so that Harry was the one enfolded in warmth and Draco could rest his pointy chin on Harry's ruffled head.

"This is forever, for me, at least," he muttered softly. "I want to do it properly—do you blame for that? I want the world to know it's not a mistake or a curse or some silly schoolboy fling. That we're not mad, and you're not bewitched or I have you under a bloody Imperius or Confundum. That's all. Is that not understandable to you? What must I do to make it so, Harry?"

"Oh, it is, believe me, Draco," Harry sighed, his voice muffled by Draco's robes. "Very," he added, blushing fiercely and clinging for all he was worth. The Slytherin emblem dug into his cheek with the pressure, leaving the imprint of a serpent upon his flushed skin. "And it's because I feel the same, git, that I want them to know. _Now_, not later. Sooner, soonest, now, damn it! I want it to be fact, Draco. Accepted, a cast-in-stone _fact_. And all that talk that goes 'round will make it so, faster even than any of your 'proper' channels. We need it, Draco, admit it. It's the very best way to go about it."

"It _is_ fact, Harry," Draco murmured, and Harry could feel lips moving across his fringe, his temples as Draco shifted, easing Harry onto his lap. "It is absolute, unchanging fact, what I feel for you. But it can also be presented in the way that will do the least damage, as opposed to bollixing it up by making arses of ourselves in the papers. 'Schoolboy scandal', Harry. 'The Hero and the ex-Death Eater spawn'? You don't need that; nor do I. Noth those sorts of headlines. You've enough to deal with as it is, yes? Aurors will be a huge demand on your time and attention and I don't care to have us lost in the translation, Harry. A Wizarding betrothal is a very serious affair; we should follow the rules on this one, trust me. It only makes sense."

Harry kissed the chin that bobbed at eye level and sighed, momentarily stymied.

"You're a complete lout, Malfoy, to use my own finer feelings against me. Again, I can see that—I acknowledge what you're saying, and I even agree—up to a point. But I still stand by this. We need to tell Hogwarts, first. It'll be an acid test for what to expect, later. But it also make the telling later far easier. The betrothal will be much more easily accepted if there's rumour going about already. At least admit _that,_ Draco. You know it's true."

"I know you're a stubborn wanker, Harry, and so am I," Draco's laugh was a little breathy, but perhaps that was due to the swelling of his prick, nudging fiercely against Harry's inner thigh. "And I know I am mad with fancying you and would do nearly anything you asked, but—no, not this. I won't cheapen us, Harry. We've come too far to make less of it."

"It's not cheapening it, Draco. Far from it." Harry leant back a bit so he could meet the serious, steady gaze fixed on him. "It's being preemptively celebratory. This'll set the mood—it'll keep it in a positive light. That's what Ron thinks, anyway, and I agree with him. 'Rough ground—'"

"'Lightly'." Draco sighed and closed his eyes. "I know what _you_ think, Harry, and don't believe for a second I forgive you for ratting us out to that befreckled idjit of yours, either, but I truly can't see it. Far too many of them still have me cast in a very foul light. It's courting disaster, saying anything this early. It's not been quite a year yet. Better to wait, Harry. The public needs to forget a bit more—think of things other than your every move."

"Better to have it done and over with, Draco," Harry countered, determined. He nipped the pouty lower lip brushing the tip of his nose, and snuggled more deeply into the warm arms that gripped him. Draco's heart thundered beneath his ear, reassuringly steady though a shade faster than normal. Cool, calm, arrogant Draco Malfoy, he who was always so very aloof—he who loved Harry.

Loved Harry enough to risk making a ruddy fool of himself, before everyone, chatting him up under the glares of the remnants of every House in Hogwarts—even his own. Enough to keep right on talking to Harry—teasing Harry—dogging Harry's footsteps till he at last paid attention to what the ruddy bleeder was actually doing, following him 'round like a barmy sheepdog.

Attention—friendship. And, when Harry finally took his sullen head out of his arse and stopped sulking at the world for letting him live when so many others died—love. Enduring, hidden, grudging love.

Harry grinned. He'd not be giving _this_ up for the world—not Draco Malfoy. So very difficult to manage—so very worthwhile. Steeling his nerves, he ran a daring hand down between his thigh and the bulge in Draco's trousers, fumbling sure fingertips over the outline of the dick that twitched there, sensitive to every shift of Harry's pleasantly achy arse.

He didn't want tea. He wanted cock. He craved skin—thin lips, stubbly pointy chin, roving hands and hot breath, panting. The trip of a heartbeat; the scent of desperate passion. Ardor—desire—lust; no! Bone deep _need_.

"I disagree, Draco," Harry stated. Categorically.

No, he wasn't letting this drop and he wasn't standing down. Malfoy could go pound sand for all the cooperation he'd get out of Harry for fucking _waiting_! Waiting was those who weren't living—waiting was for fools and cowards.

"You're being a total arse; a stick-in-the-mud and a coward besides," he taunted, hand sneaking up to twist at a jersey-covered nipple. Draco gasped.

"Take that back, Potter!" he growled, and covered Harry's hand with his own clenching fingers. "Take it back," he repeated, hissing. "It's not fucking true!"

Not by a long shot was Harry waiting a moment longer than he absolutely had to—by Hades or high water, it would be done, this thing—this revelation, and sod the fucking world if they didn't care for it!

"If you're not ashamed of me, Draco, then let's tell them and be done with it, you silly sod. I can't be bothered to loll about a moment longer than I have to—not now."

Harry squirmed with purpose, and pressed the length of his fingers against the solid cock that lay only a thin layer of wool beneath. Draco hauled in a tight breath—more of a sibilance, really—and clutched Harry all the tighter, his jaw taut. He pressed kisses-feverish ones, hot and dry-at Harry's temples, jostling his spectacles.

"Oh, not _now_—not when you do that, Draco!" Harry asserted. "Not a fucking chance!"

"Mmm, Harry! Please—"

The gripping hands left his shoulders and began to roam—all across Harry's spine and ribcage, his sensitive underarms and his flinching thighs, and settled at last on Harry's straining thighs squeezing them.

"Harry!" Draco moaned, and snogged him as though the world were ending, right here and right now.

If Draco believed he could be distracted, then let him, the twat. Harry had other ways of making things happen—and no scruples whatsoever when it came to keeping hold of what he held most dear. His stuck-up Slytherin lover could lump it.

Harry grinned, most evilly, but Draco was focused on Harry's questing fingertips to the exclusion of ought else.

"Git," the real git-of-ages frowned, drawing his icy blond eyebrows together fretfully. "Cease with the bloody ham-handed distractions, Potter. I know exactly what you're doing and it shan't work. We wait." He stuck his tongue firmly into Harry's available ear, sweeping the edges of it wetly. "Till the time is right," he added, his words garbled by mouthing Harry's earlobe. "Till we can proceed properly and no one will lambast us for it. I won't have you at risk, Potter."

Those Slytherin star Seeker's hands had lost none of their agility in the year they'd spent merely coaching. Draco retaliated for all Harry's not-so subtle distractions, Harry's rigid prick hot and heavy in his palm beneath the layer of denim trousers.

"Ah!" Harry yelped, caught by surprise. "Wanker! No fair!"

With a neat sideways twist, he was straddling his lover's lap and snogging him again, deeply, with lashings and lashings of heated tongue and sensitive gum. Their frantic lips slid across each other's; tea scented, lemon-kissed on Draco's part, and smoky sultry, and they both groaned and dove deeper, the difficult matter between them forgotten for the moment.

It went on and on, the snogging, till Harry's breathing was ragged and Draco's chest heaved beneath his gaping robes. The bubble of white noise buoyed them aloft; the wandless Charm Harry had cast kept them from all the prying eyes—for even the loyal Gryffs were eternally curious as to why that prick Malfoy was so often to be found in the sanctity of their precious Common Room, new 'best' mate of Harry's or no—and so they kept at it, undisturbed, for a long while.

"Do you," Harry gasped, punctuating his words with nibbles and butterfly kisses, "believe me," and Draco did the same, his eyes tightly closed, a look of sheer exultation writ across his faintly flushed features, "when I tell you I love you?"

"Mmm," Draco murmured. "Don't stop, Harry."

"Do you?" But Harry was insistent. "Draco?"

"Yes!" Draco buried his nose in Harry's slightly sweaty nape, inhaling harshly. "Yes, I believe you—_I believe you, prat_. But I will not let you go, Harry; I won't! We'll do this properly, damn it, so I don't have to!"

"Oh, Merlin," Harry groaned and gave up his throat despairingly to the lips and teeth that latched on to it, lamprey-style. Draco's hands fumbled over him, tugging buttons, rending shirttails. "You're such a fucking stubborn git, Malfoy. Oh!"

"My Harry—that's right," Draco muttered, and laid a hot hand on Harry's bared cock. "That's it, love. Just like that. And no—I'm _not_ changing my mind, stupid. Take off these fucking trousers!"

Stalemate.

That's what they'd reached, he and Draco, despite all the persuasive wiles Harry had trotted out for his attack on Draco's struck-stone convictions of what was 'right and proper' about admitting a secret love to the general public. It was gloriously frustrating, that. Wonderful in that he was utterly convinced Draco Malfoy adored every breath he took on this planet, and that his affection and lust and sheer desire for Harry was both honest and true as an arrow—frustrating because the same damned prat wouldn't allow Harry to flaunt it before what amounted to their nearest and dearest.

They'd friends here, at Hogwarts; peers who had struggled alongside in the fight against Voldemort. Professors who had gone above and beyond, risking their lives—and some losing them, poor old Snape; still grieved-for Dumbledore—for this, the generation most at risk from a rampaging, insanely magically gifted zealot. And Ron and Hermione—McGonagall, too, for all her pursed lips and perpetual frown—were Harry's family, just as Zabini, Parkinson, Goyle and Nott were Draco's surrogates, with his parents confined mostly to the manor yet. Any normal person would want to tell them—would want to admit that happiness had struck one with the force of a gale and bowled one away into an incredible Wonderland.

And for Harry, it was all that—and more. So much more. He'd not ever been loved like this; had no conception of it, only the faint envy of Ron and Hermione's enduring bond and an even fainter bittersweet recollection of his foray into the borders of that unknowable world via the admitted crushes he'd sustained for Cho and Ginny. But they'd not come close—_he'd_ not come anywhere near this intensity of emotion, not with _them_.

It had taken Malfoy to shove him heart-first into the maelstrom; persistent brat that he was, insistent git that he could be—up-one's-nose, in one's face, 'you will pay me attention!" Malfoy—to burst through the shields Harry had unwittingly constructed between his fragile heart and the terrifying world that was Love, after Sirius died—after everyone died. Those wards had served him well whilst the war raged. He'd been able to keep walking forward, despite the fallen. And after they'd been habit, his wards against the pain that was living, despite everything. But…

But, that was then and this was now. And 'now' was a vastly different prospect. Now was _joy_. And Harry was impatient.

"I have you," Harry announced, and clamped down hard on Draco's hips. "It's alright. Sit still, git-face—easy does it!"

"Ummm…Harry," Draco sighed and arched his spine, and Harry grinned into the fine pale hair that tickled his nose. Draco was flushed and eager beyond words, writhing fitfully under him, but still waiting. Ever so patient—unnecessarily so—his well-bred, persnickety Pureblood Malfoy.

"Nice and slow to start, you impatient twat," he ordered, and Draco laughed—a faint breathy chuckle that always caused Harry's heart to flip-flop. Shoved a bare quarter-inch into Harry's puckered anus and sucked air through tight-shut teeth at the self-discipline he was exerting.

"I love you," Harry burst out, unable to keep it in his swelling heart; he didn't require Draco's control at the moment! "You stupid, stubborn twat—so much! Right! More, now—_harder_!"

"Harry..." Draco ignored him, more caught up in the sensation of his cock plunging deep into Harry's magically readied arsehole than in any words Harry might be flinging. "Harry..."

"Go deeper, Draco! Take me, you stubborn arse! Make me feel it!" Harry ordered, and ground down his hips till the jut of Draco's bones met the soft flesh of his arse cheeks painfully.

"Oh, Harry! Gods, _Harry_!" Draco choked—but he'd Harry in a grasp of steel and was hammering upwards, nailing his rider to the sky. It was brilliant.

"How you _can_?" Harry gurgled, swallowing, and went on with blind desperate determination. "How you can doubt it, I don't know, but—_but_! It's true! So very true, Draco. Don't deny it—don't deny me!"

"Ah, Harry, Harry!" Draco cried out, and Harry knew he didn't hear a word Harry was spouting—couldn't, likely. As Harry himself could barely piece two thoughts together in a straight line, his brain fuzzy-pink and awhirl with sensation. "Salazar, Harry! How can you be so tight?" Draco demanded, and didn't wait for answer. He was deep in, throbbing against the nub of Harry's prostate, sending reeling waves of gut-wrenching pleasure through the both of them.

And there it was, that excruciating tightness, the knife-edge clench of pliant muscle to throbbing cartilage, quivering—fucking pounding away—and all too soon Harry's dick shot its thick creamy load all up and down his bow-taut partner's naked white chest as he fisted himself to bliss. Merlin! Well nigh Heaven, this!

And he'd not be denying it, ever. Never, ever. No matter what the git said or did to the contrary, pathetic tosser. This was not to be denied, covered up or snuck in sideways. This required nothing less than full disclosure, namby-pamby Malfoy's nerves by the wayside.

Harry plotted, ergo. He was becoming rather gifted at it, actually.

* * *

"So, that's it. My great plan, so far. What do you think?" he asked his two best mates, much later. They were settled in a pea-pod row on the long divan, before the Common Room's largest hearth, and comfortably Muffliato'd, thanks to Harry's forethought. Hunkering down over a tea tray, too, which somehow seemed the proper setting for all his most important discussions recently. A week had passed them by and Draco was still as stubbornly fixed on waiting for the 'proper time' as ever. Draco, fortunately, was occupied elsewhere at the moment, which was why Harry had the chance to confab privately with his mates at all. Normally they were stuck fast at the hip, he and Draco, at least in the safety of Gryffindor Tower.

All passionate blandishments aside, though, Malfoy the Younger was one fucking stubborn, mule-headed prick and deep set in his convictions of what was 'best for Harry'. He'd not budged an inch from his stance on secrecy. Harry was privately going spare over it. So...

To counter that idiocy and in a supremely Slytherin move, Harry had quietly written for permission directly from Narcissa, trusting that she would whip her bastard-arse louse of a husband into line. He'd then tracked down and cornered both Zabini and Parkinson, presented his case in no uncertain terms, and been grudgingly allowed to pursue it, with what amounted to a virtual blessing from Slytherin House. They, too, were weary of Draco's tiptoeing 'round the bloody obvious. Had spoken privately to Headmistress McGonagall—and even Snape's sneering, cackling portrait, all in the name of what was right, proper—and bloody fucking _expedient_. Things were well in train for the Great Dénouement, as Malfoy—Mister Bloody Thesaurus-on-Two Legs—would no doubt put it.

"Ah, um," Ron said, tapping his chin. "Not bad, mate. Not bad at all, sticking him on the spot like that. But—"

"You're forgetting something obvious, Harry," Hermione took up the sentence with the ease of long knowledge of her chosen one. She and Ron exchanged speaking, sly glances and then she raised her hand, showing off the glint of a sparkle. "Something you're really going to want to have in hand when you fall on your knees in the Great Hall. Something you'll need, Harry, if you're going about this properly."

"Ah!" Harry yelped, bolting upright from his comfortable sprawl across the sofa cushions—same ones Draco had shagged him silly on just last week. "Fucking Hades! I have to go bloody _shopping_—Diagon, damn it! Hogsmeade won't have anything near expensive enough! Alright, who's up to going with me? I'm pants at jewelry, I know it! Meaningful jewelry's even worse! Shite, shite, _shite_! Help me!"

Hermione chuckled at him, reluctantly, but still. She and Ron had accepted (also reluctantly, but it was the 'accepted' bit that really counted) that Malfoy was Harry's better half with a staggered series of sidelong doubtful looks and uneasy murmurs at first; her far more hesitant than Ron, oddly enough, but in the end neither of them objected to it, willingly standing aside for Harry to pursue his chance at happiness. Harry was 'a 'deep 'un', as Ron put it, and 'maybe, just maybe, he knew what he was in for', and Harry was certainly old enough and smart enough to sort out what he truly wanted from a partner in a relationship, as Hermione demurely allowed, smiling kindly. Harry could do as he pleased, they concluded—even with that git Malfoy. It wasn't their ball of bee's wax, that—not now, with world reset to 'bright' and 'hopeful' again. They'd their own bee's wax ball and were startlingly gleeful over it; neither begrudged Harry a thing, not now.

"Poor Harry," Ron shrugged, but he was grinning, the sly git. And Hermione giggled, behind her hand. "Poor innocent Harry. Lessee, there's been Cho and m'sister, mate, and neither of those was exactly a resounding success, yeah? I'd say you're hopeless at this, mate. Worse than a sodding teaspoon!" Hermione giggled at that, blushing faintly. "No offense, though."

"None taken, arse, but still, Ron!" Harry yelped, waving his hands helplessly. "I need you two; don't fail me now!"

"True," Hermione murmured to her cup, giggling still. "Harry's more a fork, though, than a spoon. Not completely a dullard, Ronald; not like you!"

"Oi!"

"Merlin, I hope not!" Harry sighed heavily, flopping back again, nestling his way between the two of them like an affectionate crup puppy. "He's bad enough as it is, Malfoy: sharp as a tack and nasty when he thinks he been stepped on. If I don't overwhelm him with my finesse, guys, I'm bloody sunk! He'll skin me alive, I know it."

Hermione patted his arm, smiling kindly. "We'll help you, Harry, if you want. If we have to, that is."

"Yeah, mate," Ron added, shoving him and sending his tea into a miniature whirlpool in its cup. "Since you've gone completely spare, we may as well contribute to your outrageous bid for full-on insanity and set you up for a life of ease-in Thickey! Cosy in Thickey, or so I've heard; no undue pressure, always three sqaures. Let's ensure you do it up right and proper, first time, and then-"

"And then, wanker?"

"And then, Harry, old chap, we'll finally have you locked up right and tight in St. Mungo's where you belong and off the public streets...well away from us decent, upstanding, non-git loving citizens. You'll be better off, mate, I'm sure."

"Ron!" Hermione protested. "That's quite enough, Ronald!"

"Bosh! He's not so bad and you know it! Leave off insulting him, guys," Harry elbowed Ron in return. "Just, er, help me, alright? I need you."

"If I must," Ron sighed, rolling his blue eyes. "If I must," he repeated, a weary wrist laid across his pale, freckled brow. "Er, must I?"

"Yes, you must, you must, twat!" Harry informed him. "Absolutely! I'm your friend, see? You owe me!"

"Okay, okay, Harry," Hermione chimed in, nodding. "Alright, we'll do our best. But you owe _us_ for it, you lazy git; let's make that clear up front, shall we? I'd better see an 'O' in NEWTS on your Potions exam, Harry, when all's said and done, or I'll tell Malfoy you enlisted our help with this crazy thing you're planning and he'll hex us all to bits-or worse! He'll hate that, I'm sure. Knowing we were in on it, whatever great scheme it is you've bubbling away in that ungroomed head of yours."

"Oh, gods, yes! He will, too, the berk," Harry agreed immediately. "He'll be totally furious with me; he'll think I set him up to be publically humiliated, when I wouldn't even think to do that, not now...hmmm. Wait a moment, here, Ron, Hermione. Set...him...up. In public. Huh." Harry grinned like a nutter; he could see it now! "Mmm...oooh! Oh, yes! That'll do it! Listen! I think I've got it, you two!"

Harry had been visited (suddenly, with all the click-on abruptness of a Muggle lightbulb, beaming) with a brilliant, shiny-bright idea; an idea that knocked the bloody stuffing out of any he'd had previous vis a vis the niggling issue of Draco Malfoy and his silly qualms. He grinned at both his mates in turn, confidentially, feeling sneaky and sly and entirely unrepentent over the revelation of the machinations to which he was willing to ascribe to have his way...or the depth of feeling that charged that grim determination. They'd never believe (well…mayhap Hermione would—no, likely Ron, too, that chess-playing champion prat; all surface brash with hidden depths, bloody old Ron); well, they'd never clue in that he, Harry Potter, had been enamoured of the snarky little shite known as 'that slimy git Malfoy' since well before this year ever began. Oh, for ages, now. Fifth Year, maybe? Or perhaps as long ago as Fourth, when he'd caught Malfoy watching him so intensely at the TriWizard. Or Third, when Malfoy had scrambled after them to warn away Hermione from the threat of the Death Eaters. Strange ways, that Malfoy.

Harry had puzzled over these events for years, not twigging it. Why would Malfoy care? Same as he'd been bewildered by Draco's refusal to recognize him at the Manor—same as he'd been bollixed by Draco's oddly intent pursuit of him when the War was finally over. Those incidents, taken together, made no sense on the surface. Unrelated oddities, like the Muggle's UFO reports. But if one were to peer more deeply into it; look past the actions of a frightened boy, an angry boy, turned a jealous, dispairing teen, then it was crystal-clear, the motivations of one Malfoy, Draco. For a very long time, or so it became apparent, he'd felt…something...for Harry: something _not_-hate. Longer even than Harry had ever noticed, he was sure of it. Always pricking at Harry, that git; always nagging away at his fringes like a sore molar—always fascinating him as a snake charms its unwary victim. And he? Well, he was terribly, horribly, nastily fascinated with Malfoy in return...and it wasn't ebbing in the slightest, now his suspicions had been summarily laid to rest. He was no longer required to view Malfoy through the lens of 'enemy', but Merlin! That bastard was still as much in Harry's head as ever was! ...And Draco was in much the same circumstances as he was, Harry was certain, though he'd likely blush to admit it—in public. He was smitten, the blighter, same as Harry. Fucking smitten, fathoms deep. And nervous as Kneazle on hot coals over it, poor git. It was...sweet, really. He'd never know what hit him, either, not if Harry had his way. NOt if this new plan played out the way Harry was thinking it might. He'd bloody well be forced to capitulate, the cautious git!

_Roll over, Draco_, Harry's devilish side chanted. _Give in, my sweet!_

Oh, but yes, _sweet_ was the very exact word to describe this! And (Merlin help him!) Harry found that hesitancy of Draco's to be utterly, sweetly, shyly adorable, even so. Stupid, blindered, blinkered, annoying and frustrating as all get-out—but adorable, nonetheless. Just not exactly what was needed, when one was planning on setting the Wizarding world on its bloody ear, no...Still, Harry _was_ fathoms deep in love now, officially, and Hogwarts would damned well know of it first—recognize it officially—despite Draco's unrelenting asininity over the 'proper method' of going about a formal Wizarding courtship. Harry Potter did not function by half measure; this meant war!

This was justifiable! It was more than time for Plan 'B': the all-out frontal assault, Potter-style! Er...with reinforcements.

"'Kay," he confided to his fellow co-conspiritors, snuggling in between them, "this is what I'm thnking _now_..."

* * *

TBC…later. 'Plan B' is in the works, but it may be a while, folks. Just sayin'. This is not really a one-shot but then again, it is, too, and thusly labelled. Tiger


End file.
